Alumni Successes

In 2019, Callahan, who was working as the Head of Global Business Development Strategy and Operations at Twitter, pitched the idea of a Product Management course to the school. This evolved into the Product Management Prep Program (PMPP) for Bootcamps. He brought in his friend Ahmed, who was working in the field, to help develop the program.

Memon entered the picture when he enrolled in Callahan and Ahmed’s first Product Management Bootcamp. He was a BTM Co-op student at the time. “This Bootcamp was a perfect opportunity to formalize my learnings and meet a lot of smart, talented people in Product roles at some of the most admired companies in the world,” he says.

Since graduating, Memon has worked in both Product Management and Design roles, and says the skills he acquired from this Bootcamp have been foundational to his career. Coincidentally, he landed his first job after graduating at PureFacts Financial Solutions working on the same Product team with Ahmed.

In March 2021, Ahmed left PureFacts to join MedChart as a Product Manager. When he was building his team, he hired Memon in June to work as a Product Designer. And coincidentally, just a few months after that, Callahan joined the company’s San Francisco office as their Head of Product & Design.

Memon says that it was incredible meeting Ahmed and Callahan through the Bootcamp and learning from their knowledge and experiences, and now he has the opportunity to work with them day to day.

Ahmed says that growing up, he was taught that to build a strong community, you have to give back. “I genuinely believe we have some tremendous talent coming out of the Ted Rogers School,” he points out. “I take pride in sharing my experiences and the knowledge that I have acquired to help someone find their path because it strengthens our community.”

The company provides internet protocol (IP) creators with ultimate control over their assets, security and peace of mind for transactions done on the MOVE Market – where exclusive content can be bought, sold and traded by end-users using cryptographic token assets across a multitude of IP categories, including entertainment, music, artwork and sports.

“Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I had the privilege of being surrounded by industry experts and founders in the crypto/blockchain sector. I’ve always wanted to look for ways to push technology to create change,” explains Bokun. “Solving the problem of ownership for creatives is one way that I believe MOVE is helping create change. Allowing transparency through the use of blockchain so that artists are rewarded for their work in a recurring manner can be translated throughout industries.”

Bokun says the Ted Rogers MBA program assisted him in his entrepreneurial journey because it provided a network of support – whether coming from professors or classmates during and after the MBA program. “Being around like-minded individuals looking to better themselves is something I will cherish,” he says.

He also appreciated the case studies he worked on in the program. “Working collaboratively during this process has helped me as a Founder and President of a 15+ team situated in both Hong Kong and North America,” Bokun points out.

Balasundaram and one of the co-founders presented their idea to the Dragons – a panel of business investors – on a December 2021 episode. The pair left the Den having made a deal with tech entrepreneur Michelle Romanow worth $75,000 for 20% of their company.

The idea for the app came about because Balasundaram grew up without dental insurance. A chip in his tooth progressed to him needing a root canal, and it cost him $2,400 out of pocket. He went in for a check-up when the pain was unbearable, and the dentist told him that this issue could have been prevented if he had come in for his dental visits.

After venting to his friends (now co-founders), they realized that there has to be a better, cheaper and faster way to connect patients to a dentist outside of a dental clinic.

Balasundaram’s friends Navine Manivannan (a software engineer) and Myooran Nadesan (a CPA, CA, with experience working with companies in the dental industry) got together and built an app that allows users to get an instant, free and personalized oral care report from their smartphones. Users upload a few images of their teeth, and the AI model scans these images. In the first few months after launch, they had over 5,000 users.

Balasundaram was thrilled to secure a deal on Dragons’ Den and notes that the skills he learned and opportunities he had at the Ted Rogers School helped to get him to where he is now.

In 2018, he entered the Slaight New Venture Competition at the school and won for his product Scuto. “With the help of the individuals that ran the Startup Certified Program, I was able to gain invaluable knowledge about building a company, which provided me with the foundational skill set I needed to get to this point,” Balasundaram says.

Balasundaram plans to continue to focus on improving how people take care of their smiles with his co-founders. “I’m excited and fortunate to be able to pursue a venture that has real potential to positively impact communities across the world,” he says.

As much as he loved working at an advertising agency after university, he always wanted more autonomy in his life. This was when he rediscovered his passion for theatre and acting and reapproached it, but now with a business degree under his belt. When he began training and putting himself out there, he realized being an artist is essentially running a business.

“Being a proactive artist means being a producer, specifically a self-producer,” says Thava. “Every day as an artist trying to make a living off my art, I need to know how to run my career like a business and break even at the bare minimum.”

Thava has also helped support other artists with their business plans. Between his time in advertising and becoming a full-time artist, he worked as the Manager of Programs at the York Region Arts Council (YRAC). While working with local artists, he saw that a common thread was a lack of business skills.

“As someone with a business degree, who was also passionate about the arts and culture sector, I enjoyed connecting with these artists, assessing their business needs and providing them with the tools, knowledge and resources to support their art practice,” explains Thava. After leaving the YRAC, he continued to manage a consulting practice for artists on the side.